Milford: Portuguese Picnic this Saturday

MILFORD - The Portuguese Picnic – one of Milford’s biggest annual events, with an expected 10,000-person draw – will take place this Saturday and Sunday at the Prospect Heights Portuguese Club.

"This is a very historic, traditional, festive event," Selectman Dino DeBartolomeis said. "It's something we want to foster and promote."

The festivities, which start around noon Saturday, include open-flame grilling of traditional Portuguese food, traditional dancing, and live Portuguese music going well into the night.

The Board of Selectman issued the Portuguese Club a liquor license for the event, as they do every year. The club will be selling beer.

The Portuguese Picnic is a roughly 75-year-old tradition, starting as a way for the immigrants living in the Prospect Heights, who at the time all worked for Draper Mill in Hopedale, to celebrate and preserve their cultural heritage, said Alberto Correia, a member of the Prospect Heights Mayor Association.

"All these people show up to celebrate Portuguese heritage," Correia said. "But more importantly they show up to celebrate Portuguese heritage in Milford."

Along with the ceremony a new Mayor of the Heights is selected by a committee of former mayors and honored on Sunday. The mayor changes every year, and circulates among the six dominant nationalities in the Heights – Portuguese, Irish, Italian, Armenian, Polish and Greek.

The new mayor is honored as part of a roughly 2-mile long parade that happens every Sunday.

Police Chief Tom O’Loughin said that every year he’s at the picnic from beginning to end.

"From the day I came here it's been my commitment to make sure things go right," he said.

During the day, Milford police also send one officer. At 4 p.m., there are two supervising officers and 10 other officers on duty.

For the past six years, state police have sent a sergeant and four troopers to patrol the area around the picnic, O'Loughlin said.

"It’s been very quiet for several years," he said. "People come, have a nice time, then go home."